BEIJING, April 6 /PRNewswire/ -- BioDuro announced today that they have entered into a strategic partnership with Roche to support discovery phase research efforts at Roche's global research sites. BioDuro will provide research services in the areas of discovery chemistry and biology, which can help to shorten (internal) drug discovery timelines. This agreement is an expansion of an existing relationship.

Roche has many years of experience in partnering with external companies to complement its internal drug discovery expertise with external services and innovation. After extensive evaluation of many companies, Roche selected BioDuro as a strategic partner for this effort.

"Presently, there is intense competition within the CRO industry for outsourcing and drug discovery services, and the expectation is that they will deliver problem solving skills and innovation in both chemistry and biology," commented Robert Goodnow, Ph.D., Roche's Global Head of Medicinal Chemistry Outsourcing. "We selected BioDuro due to their demonstrated excellent performance in synthetic chemistry and ability to deliver integrated medicinal chemistry services."

"BioDuro is pleased to build upon this existing collaboration and work closely with the experienced team at Roche to aid in the development of novel therapeutics. We care deeply about working on projects that will impact the quality of life worldwide and working with Roche ensures this outcome. Our partnership demonstrates the strength of our innovative, fully integrated R&D service platform, and is a true testament to the caliber of scientists that have joined our team," commented John Oyler, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of BioDuro LLC.

About Roche

Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Roche is one of the world's leading research-focused healthcare groups in the fields of pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. As the world's biggest biotech company and an innovator of products and services for the early detection, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases, the Group contributes on a broad range of fronts to improving people's health and quality of life. Roche is the world leader in in-vitro diagnostics and drugs for cancer and transplantation, and is a market leader in virology. It is also active in other major therapeutic areas such as autoimmune diseases, inflammatory and metabolic disorders and diseases of the central nervous system. In 2008, sales by the Pharmaceuticals Division totalled 36.0 billion Swiss francs ($33.3B US), and the Diagnostics Division posted sales of 9.7 billion francs ($9.0B US). Roche has R&D agreements and strategic alliances with numerous partners, including majority ownership interests in Genentech and Chugai, and invested nearly 9 billion Swiss francs ($8.3B US) in R&D in 2008. Worldwide, the Group employs about 80,000 people. Additional information is available on the Internet at www.roche.com.

About BioDuro

BioDuro is a US-based, fully-integrated, end-to-end, life science, research services company with a team of 580 in Beijing, China. BioDuro combines western pharmaceutical company quality and professionalism, with entrepreneurial, innovative biotech research culture, to leverage its talented, hard-working scientists. BioDuro's clients are over 40 pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, including 10 of the top-12. BioDuro's services span the entire range of drug discovery and development, from discovery chemistry, discovery biology, early ADMET, DMPK, through pharmacology and drug safety evaluation.